During the Great War women began to replace men in a wide range of industries.
In the May of 1915 Salford Corporation took on 15 women to work as guards on their trams.
It would be a few months later before Manchester followed suit and while they were undergoing their training the Manchester postal authorities decided to utilise the services of women in the
“delivery of letters.”
And across the twin cities women were engaged as gas inspectors.
I hope that Salford Corporation was a little bit more generous in their recognition of the work undertaken by their woman gas inspectors than Manchester.
In 1918 Mr Frederick A Price the superintendant of the Manchester Gas Department reporting to the Gas Committee of Manchester Corporation on the work of the 31 women clerks and 85 women meter inspectors concluded that while they were good and careful workers and industrious and painstaking.*
But they lacked initiative, were not capable of discharging the higher administrative duties and lacked the necessary imagination and concentration with the power of organisation adding they liked to indulge in a little gossip.**
Location; Salford
Picture;
Salford women gas inspectors, 1917, m08110,, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
*
Women at Mens’ Work, Manchester Guardian, January 5, 1918
**
from Manchester and the Great War, Andrew Simpson, the History Press, published in February 2017, ISBN -33: 9780750 978965
And in the way of things they also employed tram inspectors
